STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://www.accessv.com/~wulkan/fmt.html) VOLUME 11 Monday July 19, 1999 CONTENTS - Starweb Future and Starweb Past! Feature Article - Starweb and the New Millenium Questions - Turn 1 exploration. Paul Balsamo challenge taken. Merchant ambushes. SEDG Web Page URL The Captain's Log - Starweb Then - Rules Edition #1 Correspondence FEATURE ARTICLE Starweb and the New Millenium By Elliot Hudes (somnos@compuserve.com) Before I start I must post a disclaimer. There is no plan at the moment to upgrade the Starweb game. In fact, in the past I have submitted some of these ideas to Rick at FBI and he felt that some of my ideas were heretical and too inflammatory for inclusion into the FBQ :-). Imagine making changes to this already award-winning game! I understand. After all, Starweb is still immensely popular and what if the gamers didn't like the upgrades? And if you created a new variant there is concern that with only a finite pool of players this would extend the already long waiting list for new games to start. Having said all that - here are some of my heretical ideas . First, I must say that I am approaching this with the idea that the basic premise of the game would not be changed in any way. After all the fixes and changes it should still be recognizable as Starweb. You may feel when I'm done that I have crossed this line but I hope I haven't. WORLDS In addition to Blackholes I was thinking there was room for other astronomical anomalies. Wormholes - These worlds have changing connections from turn to turn. You enter a connection and the next turn you will be ejected (with ships intact) to some other part of the galaxy. Could include a variant that allows you to choose which of that turn's available connections you can fly to. Whiteholes - (extremely rare) - not in all games. A connection appears briefly (1-2 turns?) and if you go through your key winds up in a different SW universe (of roughly the same age - turn). Call it the Star Trek Voyager key - you are not getting home :-). Your key will be recognizable to players of that game with a number and a letter designation to avoid confusion (e.g. F137b) while all the worlds you see will have a similar letter affixed so you can keep track of the other universes stuff (e.g. W120b (23b,50b,55b). If you get lucky enough to find a whitehole home that connection will not have a 'b' on it so you know it's your universe. You are capable of scoring in that other universe but I suspect your life expectancy is low :-). SHIPS/KEYS In my mind there is room for other types of ships. Each could have advantages and disadvantages and we would have to learn what kind of mix would be good for gaming. Scout key - These ultra light fleets do not have room for metal nor armaments. Because of this they can fly up to 5 worlds in a turn and are subject to all ambushes. I imagine these as super probes I can see players building small ones of 1-10 ships to fire into enemy territory to get information before an attack even though it may warn the enemy. Cost to build - 1 metal/ship. Each player gets 2 Scout keys on turn 1 and there are another 30 sprinkled throughout the web. Keys designated by the letter 'S' e.g S157[Somnos]=5. Dreadnought key - These battle wagons contain massive ships of destruction and because of this they are slow moving only travelling 2 worlds per turn. They can fire 2 shots per ship in this key and require 3 hits/ship to destroy. Cost to create these ships would be 1.5 metal per ships. In terms of costs these ships are as costly to destroy as regular ships (1 regular ships requires 1 metal to create and 2 shots to destroy, a Dreadnought ship would require 1.5 metal to create and 3 shots to destroy). Their advantage would be the 100% boost in firepower versus their 33% reduction in mobility. Would you pay for the increase firepower? Any key can be beefed up to Dreadnought proportions by building them as Dreadnoughts. The key must be empty at first (can't mix regular ships with Dreadnoughts) and use a special Dreadnought build order such as W110BD3F1. They are capable of metal hauling (but not your first choice obviously). Could be designated with a letter 'D' e.g D157[Somnos]=5. Cloaking - I'm against fighting things you cannot see (Star Trek nonwithstanding)! WORLDS Part of the fun of Starweb involves the guessing and second-guessing about how to fight an enemy especially at the HW. Do you target the industry, the population or AH to neutralize it? As a defender I have had the same concerns. If I drop I ships that nasty ol' berserker could R attack and capture them while I make it easier for the pirate in the air to capture what I have left. I was thinking that building a defensive shield might be interesting. SHIELDS Imagine, this shield acts as I ships and P ships regarding AI, AP or AH but in addition protects versus PBB fire, Robot attack or Conversion. It sounds too good to be true so there should be a downside. Since this will be a nonspecific defense (and the only sure defense versus PBB, R or Conversion) it only acts at 30% for any 1 unit of shield strength and it's a shield so has no ability to fire as do homefleet. Here is how it works. You have used 50 metal to build up a 50 unit shield (1 metal per unit shield strength). This shield will add 15 ship support to any I ships/Pships on the ground in regards to an AI, AP or AH attack. In addition it will act like shooting at the key dropping the PBB or doing the R attack in that the first 7 ships dropping robots will be destroyed (in the shield) before any get through. For the PBB key it must have at least 7 ships on board (plus survive being fired upon by other keys) to successfully drop the PBB. But since a shield is a defensive weapon if there were only 6 ships on the key the PBB won't survive but the enemy key with 6 ships will live to fight again. How much is the shield damaged by fire? Well since they only offer 30% protection then let's say that any AI, AH or AP will only drop shield strength by 30% (but shots fired over this amount will get through to damage industry and population or neutralize the world. So a 50 unit shield that is hit by a 100 shot AI attack would have 30 shots blocked and the shield strength would drop by 30% of the shots down to a shield strength of 35. Of course other types of attacks (R, PBB) would contribute their 30% and detract from shield strength for subsequent turns. Conversion protection - for every unit of shield strength that is the number of ships the enemy (nonallied) apostle cannot use to convert (their communications are jammed and they cannot get their message through). How much metal and builds would you put into a shield? If the answer is none - we could drop the cost of building it :-). Could you scrap ships to create a shield at a nonindustry world - it's my fantasy so why not! There will be a 1 ship extra charge for every 5 units of field strength (the metal in ships is harder to rework than from ore). Can the enemy forces see your shield strength? Sure, why not? The enemy needs a sporting chance of deciding where to concentrate their fire. You can always build more shield strength or put your ships where you figure they could do the most good (like we do now). Shields for Ships - unfortunately the units required to generate them are too large for a ship . I don't think anyone would sacrifice the number of ships/firepower to beef up their shields. Maybe I'm wrong! WORLD TO WORLD COMBAT You can probe a world through the web and you can migrate converts, robots and population. So it stands to reason that you should be able to lob weapons of destruction to adjacent worlds! Obviously there should be a cost to doing this kind of business since the enemy might not even see it coming. Ok, it seems unreasonable to have your armadas shoot from an adjacent world (because if the enemy doesn't probe you they can't shoot back at your keys). So let us just say now that only ground based forces can fire down the web. If you want to put your ships on the ground to fire you will be hit with the 1/2 shot/key penalty twice (1/4 shots/key. So yes, you can shoot and invade the same turn but you leave some of your forces behind for the advantage of firing from an adjacent world. This may be worth it to capture a peripheral world and allow your forces to continue in. Example, You are at the border and you know your enemy has 2 I ships on the other side. You transfer 16 ships to sit as I ships on your side of the border and fire down the web getting 4 shots away and blowing away the adjacent worlds homefleet. Net result is you capture the adjacent world and save yourself a 2-ship ambush on every key you fly through at the cost of leaving 16 ships behind. What can you target? Well, without a probe just AI, AH or AP but with a probe you can even target a key. Remember though, a moving key will add another 50% penalty to your shots and it seems hardly worth it (100 homefleet shooting will generate 25 shots - and only 12.5 on a moving key - it won't be worth it to fire on a moving fleet). Can you lob a PBB down the web? Gee, that would make HW defense impossible - so I will say no. Or perhaps yes, but it costs 100 ships to push that much mass through the web to an adjacent world. ARMAMENTS Does Starweb need new weapons? I don't really think so. War is simple arithmetic so weapons that inflict more or less damage don't add much to the game but how about different styles of weapons? Propoganda bomb - Apostle's can load them into their firing chambers and let loose thousands of fliers with their message aboard onto the population below. This will increase the %conversion of the population to 20% of the ships present. Since they are fired out the same weapons bay conventional firing cannot occur. They must be onboard keys with more than 25 ships at the beginning of the turn (before transfer). Tractor Beam - This allows you to hold a key to the world it is at. If you vastly outgun a player by at least 4to1 it will be possible to hold them for capture (instead of destroy them). For example - you have 250 ships at your HW defending versus a 100-ship invasion on 2 keys. You may opt to destroy everything but if there are no reinforcements you could fire on 1 key 150 shots and hold the other in a tractor of 100 shot power. If things go your way you could destroy 75 ships on one key and hold up to 25 from fleeing on the other. I'm not sure a tractor beam would get much use over just destroying the enemy. NEW PLAYER TYPES I thought about this long and hard. The conventional character cover most of what you can do with the resources available in Starweb and do a good job of making players compete for the same things. Unfortunately the rules do make some types play differently than their names suggest. Berserkers score better when quietly bombing friendly territory instead of in war. Apostles are not the peace lovers the rules suggest. Here are a couple ideas. WARMONGER As opposed to Pirates who need worlds to score and can capture keys (which appears to be enough for people to play them) these characters only get points for aggressive behavior. I envision they get 5 point for every ship destroyed owned by a nonallied player (on a key or homefleet) with a bonus of another 5 points/ship if the key is emptied. A bonus of 10 points for every world captured from a nonallied player including neutral worlds). And 10 points for every key captured from a nonallied player. Giving away their worlds/keys after doesn't affect his score. Warmongers are relatively immune to pirate capture (they fight to the last man when boarded) and require a 4to1 ratio to be captured. A successful PBB on a nonallied HW would yield a 500 point bonus. AGRARIAN Your people are very close to nature. Many are farmers, fishermen and woodsmen and although very green in nature you hold a good command of technology. You have built your first starcraft to find more worlds to seed to support your ever-growing population. In all things you strive to preserve a world's ecological balance. Worlds dedicated to farming are the sources of your points. Mining and its effects on the ecology are bad so worlds with - 0 mines - your receive 4 points/population per turn. 1 mine - you receive 3 pts/population/turn 2 mines - worth 2 points/population/turn 3 mines - worth 1 pt/pop/turn 4 mines or greater - worth 0 pts/turn. Any Industry on worlds you own are equally bad and will render a world's worth to be 0 points (you can destroy the industry if you wish). Fleets travelling through or leaving from your world leave all kinds of pollution and rend the world worth 0 points for that turn. Nonfiring fleets that do not move at a world or nonfiring homefleet do not affect the world's ecologic balance (they are parked) and the world will still contribute to scoring. Any gunfire (or robot attack) have a sharp negative effect on the enviroment and will render those worlds nonscoring for that turn (so it's best to fight on enemy ground). A world can be dedicated to farming despite large numbers of mines or industry if they are plundered. Plundered worlds will not use their environmentally unfriendly mines and industry and will score at 2 points/pop/turn. Once recovered from plunder they will cease to score. Yes, you can plunder it yourself or obtain them from pirates - hence, you are both competing for and able to share the same worlds that a pirate desires. Artifacts are all products of very advanced technologies and if at a world you own (either on a fleet or the world) it will render the world nonscoring. This is likely due to some contaminants or radiation inherent in the artifacts. There are no Agrarian artifacts. Converts at your worlds are welcome as long as the Apostle has not declared jihad upon you. If he has declared Jihad then the world which houses his converts will become nonscoring for you (those converts care nothing for your ecology). You could play this position as a peaceful Empire Builder style or go get new worlds aggressively from your enemies. You cannot support friendly Jihad or R attacks from your allies without a loss in scoring potential (similar to the EB). Well, that is enough fantasy for now. I think these additions still preserve the basic game but would allow for a lot of extra little surprises that both the novice and veteran Starweb player would enjoy. Elliot Hudes ----------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? Here is a new one - Craig Steele asks: Do merchant fleets which are doubly loaded even get to ambush? Or would I have to drop half my metal to be able to fire? (This 'combat-merchant' thing is a new one on me). Walter Scmidt (in Vol. 10 The Captain's Log) said: I did the build and transfer I&P ship thing. And tried the let-me-see- if-I-can-guess-the-connector-I-can't-see thing. My version of the later is to send the two keys with only 4 ships each (I presume you know the former - it was a major article in SEDG - eMail if I'm making no sense to you) through only one connector to two different (guessed) worlds one connector beyond. Think about it. That makes the most sense to me - even though others have written otherwise. I am willing to entertain a discussion on this - hey, I might learn something. Geoff Bridges has joined the discussion: Here's the scoop on the question of turn one exploration. The question is, you start a game with a 3-connector HW, and send three fleets to explore the Ring 1 worlds. You attempt to find a Ring 2 world with your remaining two fleets. Which method gives you the best shot at success? Once upon a time before I found my true calling as a despot, I wasted several years getting a master's degree in applied math. Here's my take on the question: Assume the following: Each Ring 1 world has 3 connectors, one to the HW and two unexplored. The Ring 1 worlds do not connect, and none connect to the same Ring 2 world. There are three methods I thought of: A) Send the two keys to the same world, each with orders to continue to a different world. B) Send the two keys to different worlds, with orders to continue to the same world. C) Send the two keys to different worlds with orders to continue to two different worlds. Your chances of success as a percentage (how many Ring 2 worlds you manage to reach): A B C 0 98.4095 98.4064 98.4125 1 1.5873 1.5936 1.5809 2 0.0032 0.0 0.0066 As you can see, the probability of failure is almost the same with each method. If you go for methods that might find 2 worlds (and would succeed maybe once in 10,000 such games) you lower your chance of finding at least one world. John Shannonhouse's recommended method of B is the most likely to find at least one world. You can mess with the assumptions but the results will be substantially the same. In the highly unlikely event someone wants to see my calcs (masochist?), I can send them along. Editor: So Walt, did you learn anything :-)? Continuing our discussion from Vol 10: Can anyone take Paul Balsamo up on his challenge? How can an apostle capture a PBBed world and get the 10 points? David Benepe writes: Just a guess at the apostle capture of PBB'd world challenge. You could have a friendly Berzerker increase the population limit to 1, by dropping enough I-ships and robots, converting them to 1 industry and increasing the limit. Then migrate enough population (regular or convert) to kill off the robots on the same turn the Berzerker gives you the world. [I didn't see any prohibition against diplomacy in the question. :o) ] Lee Knirko asks: Does anyone know for sure whether conditional fire is truly random? I have had as many as three Berserker fleets, with the conditional fire frequently directed accurately to the robotizing fleet. Are there any known parameters for the target seletion? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP - is now available on the web. Look for our new MAPPER'S SECTION on the SEDG Web Page. http://www.accessv.com/~somnos/sedg.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURE - THE CAPTAIN'S LOG 990710.0758.-05 By Walter Schmidt walts@dorsai.org "To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty." - Lao-Tzu You know what too many of us don't know - how lucky they have it now with rules version seven...as compared to when StarWeb first started in 1976, and the rules first edition. So for this issue's Log, let's re- visit, remember, or for the first time take a look at the first rules and some of the differences between now and then. Going back to the beginning, to the first edition, immediately brings three thoughts to mind... Signage? We didn't have no stinkin' signage. Hell, we had to open diplomacy the old fashion way - by a message only AFTER first contact - and in doing it this way - hope for the best. What's this published "order of events." We didn't have such a luxury - we had to figure it out ourselves - and that was the hard way - believe me. Now on the other side of that same coin, this lead to some of us more experienced players having a decided advantage - But ain't that the way it is in real life? So why shouldn't it be that way, here - sheesh!!! And least we forget - our transfer system WAS instantaneous, not almost! Leave it to some nit-picking rules-reading beslubbering flap- mouthed canker-blossom of an administrator to point out something that made RL change the wording to, er, our abilities for something as simple as our transfer system. What's more... Empire Builders couldn't build any new industry, period. While Merchants could then get points unloading onto a neutral world, they couldn't carry twice as many RMP, or as they are now called, metal, as others (a small note: okay, so this was changed by rules version two - which came out in 1977, a year after the publication of the original set of rules - let's not forget I am speaking about the beginning here - and not the next year). A Pirate could plunder once very three turns, and didn't have to wait for four turns to go by. Artifact Collectors were more greedy in that they didn't build any museums - so they couldn't get the 500 points per museum at the end of the game. And, who knew about transferring an artifact from one fleet to another - no Artifact Collector did - nor did anyone else. The Berserkers were less powerful - they could only kill off people 2 to 1, and they would only get one point for each population they killed. And when they destroyed one of your ships, they also were rewarded less - with only one point. Similarly guess what - a Planet Buster Bomb was only worth 100 points, not 200 as it is today. An Apostle was more powerful, or at least their converts were more fanatical. Bribing them with material goods only had a 20% chance of converting one back to normal. And being more fanatical, they didn't need to get 5 points per turn for each world they own which is completely populated by their converts, so they didn't get any points at all. And I have it on absolutely, unimpeachable, authority that there were those among us who regularly could only get their turn-sheets in to Rick on-time, by walking five miles, barefoot, in the snow, uphill, while at the same time having to... Shai Dorsai ! Nemo ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE I wrote to Joe Taormina who has a great reputation as a mapper - "Would you consider writing an article on mapping in Starweb for the SEDG?" Joe replied: >>This sounds very interesting. An article on what is actually my favorite part of the whole game. Very well. I'll attempt it. But I make no promises as to delivery date.<< So there you have it - in writing. Better cough up with a good article Joe :-). Correspondence was light this past 2 weeks. Mostly answers to questions. Still looking for good articles on various variant games such as anonymous, multi, bitter end, time travel, pandora's box and one I just heard about - black hole game? Well, that's it for Volume 11. Don't be afraid to submit articles or suggestions. They don't have to be long. Address your correspondence to Elliot Hudes at somnos@compuserve.com